1987, by Peter Wyse Jackson

opite Macurite T9;1441411/ lier ad& aide, oey4e yad. The cover illustration is: Nesocodon mauritianus (I.B.K. Richardson) Thulin The plant is a endemic monotypic genus from the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius where is occurs at a single locality on a high vertical cliff in the south-west of the island. There the population is small and vunerable. The plant is now grown in cultivation for the first time in the College Botanic Garden having been introduced from seed during a conservation expedition to Mauritius in 1985. The species has pale blue corolla. A striking feature of the flowers in the abundant orange-red nectar produced in five nectaries situated at the base of the corolla. This drawing was made by Maura Greene of a specimen in flower during October 1986. The scale is 12- life-size. ACYNOWLEDGENENTS I am very grateful to the help given to me in the preparation of this brief account of the garden's history by Dr. E.C. Nelson, particularly with regard to the early history of the College Physic Gardens, on which he has carried out so much valuable research. My thanks are also due to Professor D.A. Webb for his useful comments on the manuscript. The cover illustration of Nesocodon mauritianus was drawn by Maura Greene and the maps of Trinity Hall and the present botanic garden by Trevor Holloway. I am 1 grateful also to Mr. Denis McKennedy who first introduced me to the garden and told me much about the move from Ballsbridge to the present site. INTRODUCTION This outline of the development of the College Botanic Garden is not intended to be a definitive history but more an account of the major changes that took place during the three hundred years since its foundation, together with stories about some of the leading people, plants and places associated with the garden. I will leave it to others in the future to complete the gaps in our knowledge which could doubtless be filled by more exhaustive research than I have attempted. THE STORY OF THE BOTANIC GARDENS OF TRINITY couprp DUBLIN, 1687 - 1987. by Peter Wyse Jackson 2 THE STORY OF THE TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN BOTANIC GARDENS. The Early College Physic Gardens Since early times in Man's history there has been a close link between plants and medicine. Indeed until relatively recently botany was not regarded in the universities as a science in its own right but little more than a branch of medicine. It is therefore not surprising that the College botanic garden began life as a Physic Garden. Most of the old European botanic gardens began in the same way including the gardens of Pisa (1543), Padua (1545), Florence (1545) and Bologna (1547) in Italy and Zurich (1560), Leipzig (1579) and Leiden (1587) in northern Europe. These early botanic or physic gardens were essentially places where the teaching of the medical uses of plants was carried out. In the British Isles the first botanic gardens were at Oxford (1621), Edinburgh (1670) and the famous Chelsea Physic Garden in London (1673). Both the Chelsea and Oxford gardens still survive on their original sites. In 1591 the Corporation of Dublin set aside as the site for a college the lands and dilapidated buildings of the Augustinian priory of All Hallows which had been granted to the city after the dissolution of the monasteries. A Royal charter was obtained in 1592 and so the university came into being as 'the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity near Dublin'. Almost one hundred years later on the 25th June, 1687 the Board of the College made a decision to found a physic garden on the site of the College kitchen garden. Although the College archives record that a 'weeding-woman' was employed for this garden there is no record of what plants were grown or indeed where the garden was situated within the College campus. In 1711 Thomas Molyneux became Professor of Physic in the College. He was a graduate of Leiden, where one of the PArliest physic gardens had been established. He arranged for an anatomy theatre and laboratory to be built and he employed a lecturer to teach botany. The lecturer thus engaged was Dr Henry Nicholson, a native of Co. Roscommon and also a graduate of Leiden. He undertook the replanting of the Physic Garden and expanded its plant collections. His work is recorded in a booklet about the arrangement of the plants in the garden, published in 1712 - Methodus plantarum in horto medico Collegii Dublinensis jamjam dispondenarum. Nicholson did not remain for long in the 4 College and left Dublin in 1715. It appears that no successor was appointed until 1724 when another graduate of Leiden, Dr. William Stephens, took over. In the meantime the first Physic Garden had been abandoned in 1723 and a new one had been created behind the library at the border of College Park and between the Anatomy House and the Nassau Street wall; an area which is now largely covered by the Berkeley Library. No plants that were grown in this garden have survived and there is no trace of any trees that may have been planted in that time in the area now. Many people imagine that the College's physic garden was situated in Botany Bay, to the rear of the present Graduates' Memorial Building. However this is not so and the origin of the name 'Botany Bay' is obscure. By 1725 all the plants had been transferred and the Garden was opened to the public for the day on the 1st June of that year. THE HAROLD'S CROSS GARDEN In 1773 Dr Edward Hill was appointed Professor of Botany, and from his own writings we learn that the Physic Garden had become very run-down. According to Hill it contained a single barren fig tree tended by an ancient gardener with the whole garden overshadowed by tall elms. As well as that, the offal from the Anatomy Laboratory nearby was thrown out into the Garden where it was devoured by ten thousand rats! Hill decided to abandon the Physic Garden and began to campaign for the establishment of a new garden. Eventually, after he had been given verbal consent by the Provost of the time he leased land at Harold's Cross and began to create the new garden. Funds were very low and much of the development had to be carried out at his own expense. This led to a dispute between Hill and the College which was eventually settled by the High Court. The settlement granted compensation to Hill for the expense he had incurred in founding the garden and in 1803 the College accounts show an entry: "Dr. Hill, allowed him by the award of the arbitrators to whom the cause between the College and him concerning the Botanic Gardens was referred E618-19-8". After this dispute had been fully settled the garden at Harold's Cross ceased to exist. THE MOVE TO BALLSBRIDGE Although the College had relinquished the new garden at Harold's Cross the old derelict Physic Garden still remained on the campus . In an effort to revive it the new Professor of Botany, Dr. Robert Scott, employed a gardener 6 and botanical assistant (who would supply specimens for lectures). James Townsend Mackay was appointed, a Scotsman born in Kirkcaldy, Fife in about 1775 . The arrival of Mackay marks a change-over in the university to pure botany for the first time. He began his employment with the College as assistant botanist in 1804, teaching medical and other students Irish botany. He travelled widely in Ireland to explore the botany of the countryside. The results of these researches were later published by the Royal Dublin Society in its Transactions and by the Royal Irish Academy. In 1836 a full compilation of this work was published under the title Flora Hibernica, a book which is of great importance as the first comprehensive Irish Flora. His name is commemorated by several plants including Mackaya bella, a beautiful greenhouse shrub from South Africa, a member of the Acanthaceae, named by W.H. Harvey (1811 - 1865), joint author of 'Flora Capensis' and Professor of Botany in the College. Erica mackaiana, a heath native to the West of Ireland and Spain, was also named in his honour by C.C. Babington, Professor of Botany at Cambridge. Both of these species are currently grown in the botanic garden. It is interesting to note that Mackay's elder brother John (born in 1772) was also a botanist and collected plants in Scotland in 1792 with George Don. He also worked as a gardener in the Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. The old Physic Garden proved to be most unsuitable for a botanic garden and so in July 1806 the College leased an area of land in Ballsbridge from the Pembroke Estate amounting to a total of eight acres. This was leased for 175 years at an annual rent of 15 guineas per acre. According to a paper compiled by Mackay in 1851 (published in 1853) for the Royal Commission on Dublin University, in the autumn of 1807 about three acres of ground were taken from this plot for the botanic garden and enclosed within a high ten-foot wall. Then in the spring of 1808 the planting of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants began. Shortly afterwards a portion of this area was laid out with a collection of medicinal plants under the direction of Professor W. Allman, then Professor of Botany in the University. In 1832 an additional 2 acres were added to the garden at its south-west side and enclosed by an iron railing, some of which still survives today.

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